Check that memo again: Selznick versus Hitchcock, aka the struggle for Rebecca

[selenak]

I just came across about the nth reference to how Alfred Hitchcock, in his first American movie, "Rebecca" (based on Daphne du Mauriers novel), had to suffer from interference by the producer, David O. Selznick, how Selznick wanted to sentimentalize and hollywoodify the film and distorted the book and Hitch saved it singlehandedly, in short, the

Comments

[abigail_n]

Due respect to Selznick and his (rather quaint-seeming, nowadays) commitment to fidelity to his source material, but he has missed the point of Rebecca rather badly. We're not meant to adore the second Mrs. de Winter, much less find Max romantic or dashing. Rebecca is a great film, but its cathartic ending, in which the destruction of Manderley is a release for the narrator and Max which allows them to live happily ever after, is a direct reversal of the novel's tragic ending, which traps Max and the second Mrs. de Winter in a bleak, grey life and a loveless marriage.

Clearly, Hitchcock didn't get this any more than Selznick, but it's hard to look at this letter - which is so relentlessly nitpicky (a stone cottage instead of a boat house? Never!) and yet misses the fundamental point of the novel - and call Selznick a warrior for artistic integrity.

[selenak]

I can't stand Maxim, and yes, I'm aware Daphne du Maurier later said the marriage wasn't romantic at all, but I'm never quite sure it was intentional on her part at the time of writing. This being said, I think what Selznick got, and Hitchcock apparantly didn't, were quite a lot of emotional beats in the novel - giving the second Mrs. de Winter a name would have been awful, and yes, she does need that background as Mrs. Van Hopper's companion. Not least because Maxim's treatment of her is abominable in its manipulativeness and she, the narrator, certainly does romantisize Maxim - which is more understandable (in addition to the youthful naivete) if her position before is a ghastly one chipping away at any sense of self worth. What on earth Hitchcock was thinking when wanting to substitute Max for Mrs. Danvers in one one of the novel's great set pieces, I don't know more than Selznick did. (Also, isn't that scene the one that got Judith Anderson her best supporting Oscar nomination?) And while I don't think we're meant to adore the

[frenchani]

Interesting! And Selznick made his point using an Orson Wells reference aha! I imagine Hitchcock's reaction reading that...

That said, I don't understand how can anyone be worship Daphné Du Maurier's books, including Rebecca. I read many novels by her, when I was a teenager. Her work did best sell but wasn't good literature.

I agree with you that the sucess of the novel was what drove Selznick to want a faithful adaptation.

[selenak]

Hehe, yes. "Orson did it better"/"Do it like Orson" is certainly not what you want to hear if you're Alfred Hitchcock, freshly arrived from England and determined to make it in Hollywood.

Re: Daphne du Maurier, I think she was a good storyteller. No, she didn't write great literature, but mostly captivating books, and some of them did very interesting things with the Gothic tropes she worked with. That Selznick gets as excited about Rebecca and du Maurier as about Dickens is one of the things I find charming about him; the man really loved what he was doing, and he wasn't condescending about his audience, a la "oh well, this chick lit pot boiler which I, a manly man, would not dream of reading myself made cash, so we should film that", but got excited about the projects he produced because he was emotionally attached to them and identified with them and his audience. Doesn't mean the end results were always great, btw, but he was the opposite of the cynical producer cliché.

[trobadora]

Oh, this is fascinating! Thanks for reproducing this here. Selznick seems to have had a great sense of all the little moments and effects that come together to form something great.

[selenak]

Yes, that's what I get out of his memos, too, and a passionate involvement with the story he's producing.

[ffutures]

Well, every time I read about Hitchcock I learn new stuff. I was astonished to learn yesterday that he made a film called "Mr and Mrs Smith" in 1941 - given what the recent version is like I was expecting a Hitchcock take on a mutual murder plot, but it turned out to be a romantic comedy with no spies or machine guns whatever!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._%26_Mrs._Smith_%281941_film%29

[selenak]

Huh. I never had heard about that one before, either!